Regulate the regulators

The government's recent decision to create an independent regulator for, in effect, school academic standards appears to have taken people by surprise. The secretary of state for children, schools and families, Ed Balls, gave two reasons for the change. First, the present arrangement involved the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority in a conflict of interest, as both determiner of the curriculum and judge of standards. Second, the public would not believe what the authority said on standards as long as it was not independent of government.

While the position in higher education is different - legally, institutions with degree-awarding powers are accountable only to themselves for their academic standards - similar concerns are being raised. The recent Higher Education Policy Institute survey of student workload reveals some remarkable variations between institutions and subjects. At present, the appetite for serious regulatory reform is limited. But there are at least two drivers that may lead to changes sooner rather than later.

The first is the duplication between regulatory bodies: not only the Quality Assurance Agency, but also Hefce, Offa, the TDA, the NHS and, of course, professional and statutory bodies. While there has been a series of reforms, none has really got to grips with the problem. (The auditor in Southampton Solent University's last Hefce audit did not even appear to know that the QAA had thoroughly reviewed the institution's governance and management as part of an exhaustive scrutiny for degree-awarding powers and university title).

The second is the impact of marketisation. Even without serious price competition in the undergraduate market, we are already seeing worrying increases in student complaints and appeals, in plagiarism and other forms of cheating, as well as, almost certainly, in grade inflation. If the fee cap comes off, as many expect it will, we can expect these pressures to intensify.

So long as most institutions charge the same amount, even though institutional resourcing levels vary considerably, the price/cost/quality interactions can be discounted. When there is serious competition, they cannot be. This will strengthen the tendency to take risks with quality to protect revenue. At the same time, enhanced consumer pressure is bound to lead to defensive judgments in the academic profession, as it has in others. In any event, there are bound to be pressures for closer regulation of universities.

One way of anticipating this situation would be to replace existing regulators with a single body, as has happened in other sectors of the economy, such as financial services. An Office for Higher Education would have four main functions. First, to appoint, train and regulate auditors. Second, to conduct audits of institutions (and, sometimes, academic units) and publish outcomes. Third, to carry out value-for-money studies, facilitate benchmarking, and so on. Fourth, to advise parliament, the government, the funding council and other agencies about quality and standards. It could also scrutinise claims made by institutions about their quality and standards, and investigate serious student and staff complaints.

The main focus would be on leadership, governance and management, especially the means by which management at all levels satisfies itself about the quality of educational programmes and the resources used to achieve it. The effectiveness with which institutions select, develop, remunerate and deploy their staff is strikingly absent from current audit methodologies.

Such a system would have a number of advantages. By bringing all higher education regulation under one roof, it would save money and improve regulation. By concentrating on leadership and management, it would focus on what the quality-improvement literature tells us is crucial for organisational success. It would do away with the artificial distinction between the scrutiny of general governance and management (Hefce audit) and each institution's core business of student education (QAA and others). By making the regulator directly accountable to parliament, it would reduce susceptibility to influences, formal or informal, from government. And, above all, it would create a single body able to give an authoritative and comprehensive view of quality in UK higher education.

· Roger Brown is co-director of the centre for research and development in higher education at Liverpool Hope University, having been vice-chancellor of Southampton Solent University and chief executive of the Higher Education Quality Council